9410460 Westerfield This three-year award supports U.S.-U.K. cooperative research in neurobiology between two research groups at the University of Oregon and University of London. The U.S. investigators are Monte Westerfield and Judith Eisen and the British investigators are Nigel Holder and Stephen Wilson. The cooperative effort extends recent research by both groups in anterior central nervous system of zebra fish embryos. Newly discovered genes, have been identified either by cloning or mutation, as candidates for regulating developmental processes in the central nervous system of zebra fish embryos. The objective of this new effort is to study the potential roles of these genes in the anterior central nervous system and brain segments of zebra fish. Zebra fish are ideal vertebrates for studying embryonic and genetic analyses since a large number of their regulatory genes have already been identified. The results from this project, when compared with complementary studies in mammals, will advance our knowledge about the evolution of the anterior regions of the vertebrate central nervous system in general, the genetic mechanisms that regulate patterning, and gene expression that demarcate brain subdivisions. The project takes advantage of complementary expertise of the U.S. and British investigators and provides access to mutant zebra fish and genetic sequencing techniques developed by both groups.
